Elvis Perkins - Ash Wednesday

(I would like to start out by apologizing for the lack of reviews lately. For those of you who don't know, I recently opened an online record store. There's some really cool stuff up there. If you have a chance, head on over and check it out. I'm very proud of it. It's called The Rooftop. Let me know what you think of it.)

And now, on with the review...

I had read something about this guy in Paste at one point or another, and, from their short description, I thought he sounded like something that I would like. I downloaded this album from Emusic, and was in love with it by the first minute.
The first song, “While You Were Sleeping”, is probably the best song on the album. It starts off as a happy little folk song, with a guitar and a voice and not much else. Over the course of the 6+ minutes, it grows into something amazing and beautiful. Instruments are added slowly, so that, by the end, you’re in an ocean of sound, with drums, strings, bass, horns, and other such gorgeousness to keep you company.
“May Day!” stands out as a down track. Maybe it’s because it sounds nothing like the rest of the album…almost like he was striving for a radio track with it, or something of that nature. It’s not a terrible song…in fact, it’s actually a pretty cool song…but it just doesn’t mesh with the rest of the album, and it throws me off every single time.
“The Night and the Liquor” also seems a bit long in spots, with his faux-yodeling and everything, but, other than those moments, it’s a pretty good song.
Those are really the only couple of tracks I don’t care for a ton. And it’s not even that I dislike those songs…I just love the rest of the album so much that anything less than stellar stands out as a disappointment.
“All the Night Without Love” is a great song…a song that would not be out of place being played at a French café.
“Ash Wednesday” (a reference to the day after 9/11) and “Good Friday” are beautiful to the point of heartbreaking. When listening to either of these songs I find it very difficult not to drop whatever I’m doing at the moment and just listening. There’s a pain in his voice during these songs that really isn’t present in any of the other songs.
Speaking of which…
The musicianship and songwriting on this album is really great. However, his voice is the best part of this album. He is somehow able to mix the uniqueness of Thom Yorke with the world-weary groan-and-gravel of mid-60s Bob Dylan.
Granted, there’s nothing really too groundbreaking on this album. It’s not like listening to Revolver for the first time or anything like that. But, all the same, it’s a great album with a number of amazing moments. It’s also (along with The Good, The Bad & The Queen and Neon Bible) one of the best releases so far this year.


Rating: 9.3

Essential Tracks: “Emile’s Vietnam in the Sky”, “Sleep Sandwich”

Favorite Tracks: “While You Were Sleeping”, “Ash Wednesday”, “Good Friday”

Check out his website here

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

With their previous album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, Modest Mouse got their name out there more than they ever had before. Nevermind that they’ve been around for forever and a day…no one really cared about that. Hearing the yelping, fist-pumping, stomp-rock of “Float On” was enough for most people to declare their undying love for all things Mouse.
And why not? That song (along with “Ocean Breathes Salty”, “The View”, “Black Cadillacs”, and perhaps a couple others) was a perfect summer song…something that worked on mainstream radio (and late-night talk-show stages), yet was just different enough so that you could say things like, “Yeah, I listen to the radio from time to time…but I don’t like Kelly Clarkson or anything like that.”
But the album itself was not necessarily what you would call “radio friendly”. Along with those poppier songs, you got a steady dose of angry Pixies rock (“Bury Me With It”), plodding, horn-driven Waitsian funeral music (“The Devil’s Workday”), herky-jerky banjo-dirge (“Satin in a Coffin”), and other instances of strange music. If it weren’t for a massive single, there’s no way that album would’ve caught on like it did.
Of course, we were all waiting for their next album. What direction would they go in? Would they make an entire album of fist-pumping, “arena-ready” songs? Would they steer more towards their darker, odder side?
The answer came months before the album was even recorded, when the report came in that Johnny Marr (a member of British rock royalty) would be joining the band. Nevermind that Modest Mouse had always kind of been a “redneck-and-proud-of-it-but-not-in-a-Toby-Keith-kinda-way” band, and that throwing the guitarist for The Smiths in the mix might throw that off. More than anything it signaled a move towards a more straight-ahead rock sound…and that’s exactly what we got.
There’s still a moment or two of oddness on it…they didn’t completely get away from that side. “Parting of the Sensory” is Modest Mouse at their darkness, complete with hand claps, raspy voices in the background (think Nilsson’s “I’d Rather Be Dead”, but with crazy people instead of old people), and a military-esque, foot-rockin’ (but not in the happy way) breakdown to end it.
The rest of the album, however, is much what I expected…a straight-ahead rock album. Some songs, “Missed the Boat” in particular, could really be more accurately described as a pop song…just listen to the harmony and instrumentation in the chorus for proof.
There does seem to be more songs fitting the mold of the “Float On” in this bunch…high-energy rock songs with a catchy hook. “Dashboard” is in that group (released as the first single), as is “We’ve Got Everything” (this one actually feels more like “The View”, but that’s neither here nor there). “Steam Engenius”, with its funky guitar line, and “whoo-hoo whoo-hoo” in the chorus, is destined to be blasted out of many a car window this summer.
I really enjoyed “Spitting Venom”, but, at 8+ minutes, it seems to be a bit too long for its own good. The electric guitar line also seems to be a bit too close to “Trailer Trash”, but perhaps that’s just me.
All in all, I can say that I wasn’t necessarily surprised by the outcome of this album. There’s still a form of strangeness to some of the songs, so you can’t really say that they’ve gone all “radio rock”…I don’t think they’ll ever be able to be classified as that. This is, however, their most accessible album to date, and should win them more fans than their last album did. It’s an enjoyable album…nothing I would call spectacular, but it’s pretty solid. There’s not a single song on here that I skip, so that’s good.

Rating: 7.9

Essential Tracks: “Florida”, “We’ve Got Everything”, “Invisible”

Favorite Tracks: “Parting of the Sensory”, “People as Places as People”

Check out their website here

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

“Sophomore slump.”
It’s a phrase that seems to be used too much in music.
Make an album too much like your first one, and everyone hates it because you’re “afraid to try something different”.
Make an album too different and you’re “bucking against the popularity of your first album…only doing something different for the sake of being different”.
You really can’t win.
Except that you can.
The Arcade Fire prove this on their fantastic new album, Neon Bible.
Their first widely circulated release, Funeral, was an amazing orchestrated pop masterpiece, featuring instrumentation that is not necessarily synonymous with pop music. But they pulled it off in grand fashion.
How do you follow something that was so different yet so popular?
Stick with the same basic formula, but tweak it a little bit. That seems to be the thought process in recording this album. If you liked Funeral, chances are you’ll like this one. There aren’t a ton of surprises here…just a great collection of songs.
I will say this: this is a much better album than Funeral, and that’s saying something. The songs that are amazing on this album are better than the amazing songs on their last one.
“Intervention” is the easiest one to talk about first, seeing as how they’ve released it as their first single. It starts off with a huge pipe organ, accompanied by the strumming of a beat-up old guitar that seems to have made the recording by accident (but in a good way). The song takes a minute or so to take off, but from the beginning of the song you know that something is going to happen…the suspense can almost kill you. It gets kicked up a notch or two along the way, but, by the end they’re in full-fledged huge orchestral rock mode.
“Ocean of Noise” is another song that immediately jumps out. It’s a slow, almost sinister song that sounds as if it was recorded in a basement somewhere. A dark piano appears from time to time…just enough to let you know that it’s really there. A storm makes some noise in the background. As the song continues, more sounds and instruments are added. In about the third minute, it erupts into a psychedelic wall of sound (or, “Ocean of Noise”, if you will), complete with Spanish horns wailing away in the background. Just an amazing ending to a great song. I would have to say that it’s the best two minutes on the album.
“Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” starts as a seemingly happy-go-luck, chick fronted pop song. Well, that’s the “Black Wave” half. Halfway through, “Bad Vibrations” comes in, and it seems to be about the darkest thing on the album (but that may be because it’s paired with the sunniest sounding recording in the bunch).
The closer, “My Body is a Cage” follows about the same formula as “Ocean of Noise”…a dark, slow moving song that explodes into a darker, psychedelic wall of infinite noise (it can fill the entire room if you let it). It’s an almost surreal experience to listen to it…like you’ve been transported to another world.
No matter how many times I listen to this album, the term “dark” seems to come up a lot. I don’t know what it is, but there’s definitely an overarching feeling of dread and doom while listening to this album. But, at the same time, I can listen to this album on a nice warm day with the windows rolled down and still enjoy it. It’s odd, but, when you listen to it, it makes perfect sense. It has something to do with the production of it. It’s a muddy sound. I can’t describe it any further than to say that. Whatever they did, it works perfectly for the feel of this album.
Please, listen to this album. I don’t ask much of you all. Even if you didn’t get into Funeral that much, or never really saw what the fuss was about. Listen to this album at least 4 times. It’s darn near impossible to stop listening to once you start.

Rating: 9.4

Essential Tracks: “Black Mirror”, “(Antichrist Television Blues)”, “My Body is a Cage”

Favorite Tracks: “Intervention”, “Ocean of Noise”

Check out their website here

Richard Swift - Dressed Up For The Letdown

I am 90% sure that time travel never has been (and never will be) true. The 10% that believes it will happen some day is split as such:
1. That someday, someone will actually build a working flux capacitor.
2. How else can you explain the music of Richard Swift?
It’s not just his influences. Everyone has influences…some people just make them a bit more obvious than others. Just by listening to this album you can pick out a number of influences, mainly The Beatles, Burt Bacharach, and a little bit of Tin Pan Alley/vaudeville thrown in for good measure.
Yet Swift’s music seems a little different, as if he didn’t record these today. Listening to this album makes me think that he actually was an artist from the ‘20s that was completely ahead of his time. His music has that timeless feeling to it.
Perhaps that’s what draws me to him, the fact that he’s so difficult to pin down. This album could’ve been recorded anytime in the 1900s and it wouldn’t have really felt that out of place.
This album actually a feels a bit like a combination of his previous two. The Novelist was a short (less than 20 minutes) album comprised of songs that sounded like they came straight out of the ‘20s. It was a stripped down album that seemed to have been recorded alone in his apartment (more than likely by the light of a sole, oil burning lamp in the corner) late at night, while the rest of the neighborhood slept, his window overlooking a deserted cobblestone street.
His second album, Walking Without Effort had a bit more to it. More instrumentation, more orchestration, more modern sounding (even that “modern” tag only took it as far as 1987). The sound of the ‘20s was all but gone.
On this, his third album, he seems to have found a great mixture of past and present. The album kicks off with “Dressed Up For The Letdown”, a song that starts in a fashion eerily similar to Tom Waits’ Bone Machine…a severely slowed down skiffle beat, with a chorus of ghosts in the background. It’s a simple, bare-bones song, propelled only by a guitar and that beat. Somewhere around the two-and-a-half minute mark a trumpet comes in. Not much else in the song changes at that point, but you can almost feel a change in the mood, like something better is coming along.
And it does, with the very next track, “The Songs of National Freedom”, which starts out with a bright, upbeat piano line (reminiscent of “Martha My Dear”) and the opening lines of “We’ve seen the rain we’ve seen the sunshine/Darlin’ you and I could never be wrong”. It’s a hopeful, summery song, and really sounds almost directly taken from the Lennon/McCartney songbook.
“Kisses for the Misses” is pop music at its finest. A big, vaudeville piano opens the song, which is promptly backed with a simple drum beat and hand claps.
“P.S. It All Falls Down” is probably my favorite track on the album. It’s an upbeat, piano-driven pop song, culminating in one of the catchiest choruses in recent memory.
There are precious few missteps on the album, and even those aren’t of the “I need to skip that track NOW” variety. The most obvious (to me, anyway) is the song “Most Of What I Know”. The song itself is actually pretty good, up until the repeating line “Your love will keep my heart alive”. Now, this line, in and of itself, isn’t really all that bad. In fact, it’s backed with a pretty cool drum breakdown. It’s the fact that every time this line comes up in the song he repeats it roughly 500 times. It just gets a bit old after a while.
The same rule applies to “The Million Dollar Baby”, only it’s not quite as over the top. He just keeps repeating, “I wish I was dead most of the time/But I don’t really mean it.” Again, it’s not as over the top as the previously mentioned song, but, by the end of it, you just kind of want to tell him to stop.
Aside from those couple of moments, though, this really is quite a good album. It proves, once again, that Richard Swift is helping to keep the art of the pop song alive and well in an age where that talent seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Rating: 8.3

Essential Tracks: “Kisses for the Misses”, “Artist & Repertoire”

Favorite Tracks: “The Songs of National Freedom”, “P.S. It All Falls Down”

Check out Mr. Swift's website here

Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Everyone salivates when Dylan puts out a new album. When Time Out of Mind came out in 1997, everyone called it one the best recordings in his catalog (which is saying a lot). Then, when he released Love and Theft in 2001, they said the same thing. “Amazing, amazing stuff.” (If I remember correctly, both of those albums got a perfect 5 star review from Rolling Stone…an honor only a handful of albums through the years have received.)
Now, I’m a pretty big Dylan fan, and I didn’t really think either of those albums were anything special. Sure, they had their moments, but I wouldn’t classify them as great albums. If anyone else would’ve recorded those albums, no one would’ve given them a second glance, much less a Grammy for album of the year (which he received for Time Out of Mind).
So you can just imagine what I thought when, just last year, he released a new album, immediately heralded by critics as one of the best albums he’s ever released. “Here we go again.”
But, when I finally listened to it, I fell in love with it…from the very first blues lick. Musically I guess it’s not too far from what he was doing with the previous couple of albums, but it seems to work a little better on this album. Perhaps it’s a little more cohesive. Perhaps it’s a little more spontaneous…like he was recording just for the heck of it. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about this album makes it better than those other two.
At first look (and even getting through the album the first couple of times), it seems like a rambling, meandering album. Only one song clocks in less than 5 minutes (“Someday Baby”), and even that one just barely makes it at 4:55. The upbeat blues songs are long…the slower ballads are long. But, once you get into it, you don’t really notice the length of the songs…you just know that you love what’s coming through your speakers. I can’t really imagine these songs being any shorter and still make sense.
This album shows that Dylan still has it. He’s not some washed-up, used-to-be-great artist. This is the work of someone who, after all these years, still has a number of things in his creative and musical tank. For all of us music lovers, that’s a pretty exciting thought.

Rating: 8.6

Essential Tracks: “Thunder on the Mountain”, “Spirit on the Water”

Favorite Tracks: “When the Deal Goes Down”, “Someday Baby”, “Workingman’s Blues #2”

Check out Dylan's website here

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

For those of you who are unaware, The Decemberists are an intellectual band. The lead singer (Colin Meloy) has a degree in creative writing. But, if you didn’t know that already, you’d find out soon enough. It seems that it’s all the band talks about.
That’s one reason why I’ve never been able to get into them, even though the cool kids, or those-in-the-know have always (ALWAYS) touted them as the band. The band that transcends other bands. The band that is more about crafting difficult to understand lyrics than they are about making a good song…like Dylan, except a little more self-conscious. That’s not to say that their music isn’t good. In fact, their music is one of the high points…even if it does seem as though they’re trying too hard.
While previous albums seemed to be based around old English music (sea chanteys and whatnot) and traditional Celtic music, they seem to have gone the route of 70s prog-rockers on this album. Their older musical sensibilities are still there, but there’s more of a sheen around it this time. The second track (the epic, 12-minute-plus, 3 part “The Island”) weaves all of this together. Listen. Can you hear the members of Yes telling each other that they’re still relevant? Do you see the members of Emerson, Lake and Palmer nodding silently in the background? If you can’t, you’re just not trying hard enough. But still, beneath that heavy 70s sound, you can hear the sound of a traditional Celtic group kicking it. Celtic prog-rock? It’s not just a dream anymore…it’s a reality.
“Yankee Bayonet” is a nice little acoustic-driven pop song…but it seems like an outtake from a recent R.E.M. album…except without Stipe’s vocal range.
“The Perfect Crime No. 2” is a completely unabashed, keyboard-driven 70s rock song. You could really pick any group from that era you want…it sounds like all of them. That’s not to say that it’s a poorly done song or anything…there’s just not an original note in it (I think they stole the bass line and guitar solo from a Pink Floyd session).
“O Valencia!” is definitely the high point of the album…and there’s not even anything that amazing about it. It’s a cool rock song with a great chorus (that I can’t get out of my head, no matter how hard I try).
Despite everything I’ve said, I don’t hate it…I just don’t like it very much. I think I figured out my problem with them though. I really wouldn’t care so much that Colin has a degree in creative writing if he just wrote good songs with that background. My problem is that he writes songs with the intent of drawing attention to the fact that he has a degree in creative writing. He writes intellectual songs for the sake of writing intellectual songs, as opposed to writing a song for the sake of writing a song.
Oh yeah…I’m not a big fan of his voice, either.

Rating: 4.2

Favorite Song: “O Valencia!”

Check out their website here

Mos Def - True Magic

Unless you were earnestly searching out this album, chances are you missed its release altogether. The release date was pushed back roughly 8 times. And then, when it finally seemed set for January 9, it appeared, out of nowhere, on Friday, December 29. There was no press behind it. Even after its release, many places had the release still listed at January 9.
And then there’s the packaging. A CD in a clear plastic case. The track listing was on the CD. The only stuff on the case itself was an explicit lyrics sticker, and an anti-piracy sticker on the back, along with a message saying that credits were available at his website (which they weren’t, until 2 weeks after the album released).
So much has been made of the case. Some say he wanted to let the music speak for itself, with nothing else to look at while you were listening to it. Some said that he didn’t want to re-up his contract with Geffen, and this was his way of screwing them for money (seeing as how he’s a movie star now, and doesn’t really need their money). Some said that Geffen was mad that he didn’t re-up with them, so this is their way of screwing him out of money. Others have said that, since the album was leaked early, they wanted to get a version out to sell, and that they were planning on releasing an actual album with artwork and everything later in the year.
Well…whatever the reason, this album was released, sans artwork. So now we can get to the music.
Apparently I’m in the minority with my thoughts on this album. Aside from a track or two, I really like it. Perhaps I’m just a massive Mos Def apologist, but I really think that this is a much better album than most people are giving it credit for.
Mos really changed up his sound between his first album (Black on Both Sides, an instant hip-hop classic…very creative while, at the same time, paying homage to his “old school heritage”) and his second album (The New Danger, more on the progressive side of things, with some definite rap/blues-rock influences). He lost some fans between those 2, and some people started to wonder if his heart was in it anymore.
With this album, it really seems like he started getting back into old school mode. It’s not a complete throwback album or anything, but it’s definitely more along the lines of a straight-up hip-hop release, as opposed to an experimental journey.
As I said, there is a track here and there that I’m not too fond of. “U R the One” starts as a sweet, soul-backed song, then takes a quick turn to a profoundly angry break-up song. While it’s okay to listen to from time to time, it’s usually a song that I skip.
“Thug Is a Drug” starts out fine enough, but the chorus kills it. Mos starts singing, and it almost sounds like he’s singing off-key on purpose. I’ve heard him sing before, and he usually sounds pretty good, but, unfortunately, that’s not the case here.
Those are the only two songs I’m not too keen on. The rest of it I really dig. Some of the highlights are “Napoleon Dynamite” (for the record, it has nothing to do with the movie and everything to do with a funky soul, organ heavy backing…definitely the funkiest thing on the album), “Sun, Moon, Stars” (an acoustic jazzy track that kicks into one of the greatest horn samples in recent memory…you can’t help but nod your head to this one), “Dollar Day” (an angry song about the response to Katrina…he calls out everyone from The President to Bono), “True Magic” (a perfect opener…you can’t help but be drawn in), and “A Ha” (a total old-school hip-hop jam, complete with heavy scratching and the sound of a cocking gun in the background).
Is it the best release of his career? No…but it’s a solid release. In fact, it’s better than solid. I would say that it’s a top 3 hip-hop release from last year. It’s a shame that so many people missed this…please don’t be one of them.

Rating: 8.1

Essential Tracks: “True Magic”, “Undeniable”, “Crime & Medicine”, “A Ha”

Favorite Tracks: “Dollar Day”, “Napoleon Dynamite”, “Sun, Moon, Stars”

Check it out here